, the length or shortness of the time makes no
difference. Where is the hardship, then, if Nature, that planted you
here, orders your removal? You cannot say you are sent off by an unjust
tyrant No! You quit the stage as fairly as a player does who has his
discharge from the master of the revels. "But I have only gone through
three acts, and not held out to the end of the fifth!" True; but in life
three acts may complete the play. He is the only judge of completeness
who first ordered your entrance and now your exit; you are accountable
for neither the one nor the other. Retire therefore, in serenity, as He
who dismisses you is serene.

* * * * *

FRANCIS BACON

THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING

Francis Bacon, English philosopher and Chancellor, was born on
January 22, 1561, the son of Lord Keeper Bacon, was sent to
Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1573, and entered Gray's Inn in
1576. He had already become profoundly dissatisfied at
Cambridge with the Aristotelian philosophy, and the conception
of a humble and methodical study of Nature had early become
the dominant passion of his life. Bacon became a member of
parliament in 1584, and nine years later distinguished himself
by coming forward as the champion of the privileges of the
House of Commons against the Lords. The "Essays" were
published in 1597. Bacon was knighted in 1603, on the
accession of James I. In October, 1605, he published the
"Advancement of Learning," a work designed to interest the
king in the new philosophy, of which book we here give a
summary. This review of the existing state of knowledge was
intended to be made, later, into the first part of the
"Instauratio Magna" under the title of "Partitiones
Scientiarum." For this purpose Bacon was constantly revising
it, and eventually he had it translated into Latin, and it was
so published, greatly enlarged, in 1623, under the title of
"De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum." The summit of his
career was reached in 1621, when he became Viscount St.
Albans. His fall, on a charge of corruptions in the Court of
Chancery, took place in the following March, and from this
period until his death, on April 9, 1626, he devoted himself
to his philosophical and literary works.

_First Book_

Let us weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance